Dave Ward -What's Bad About Bullshit? The Value of Reason in Modern Philosophy

Skeptics on the Fringe presents:

Dave Ward, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh - What's Bad About Bullshit? The Value of Reason in Modern Philosophy

What's so good about being rational? The steady march of science that begun in the 15th and 16th centuries seems to show that thinking clearly and rigorously is our best route to knowing about the universe and its workings. But what happens to this vision when we realise that our minds, and our ideas of what's 'clear', 'rigorous', and 'best' are just imperfect products of forces and structures beyond our control? In a whistle-stop tour through the ideas of Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and more, Dave will explain why these questions have been at the heart of European and American philosophy for the past 300 years.

Dave has been a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh since 2011. He's interested in the relationships between perception, agency, and thought, and draws on contemporary cognitive science and various bits of the history of philosophy to help him think about this. Born and raised in Edinburgh, when he's not philosophising he enjoys running, climbing, snowboarding, and outdoors-y things in general.

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